How to Measure A Year.

How do you measure a year? In daylight, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee? In inches, in miles in laughter and strife?
– Rent the Musical, Seasons of Love

My contract teaching English in Toulouse is for exactly a year. I arrived early last July and was welcomed to a muggy and hot Toulouse. As the days of June fly by this year, I am realizing that my time here is almost over and thinking about what this year has meant to me.

I spent my first night in France sleeping on the kitchen floor of the apartment sobbing. I had arrived the same morning after a 23-hour flight from Sacramento, visited the semiconductor production site where I now work, and walked the streets of Toulouse. Nothing was as I had expected it. I already missed people back at home. I was certain it had been a mistake to come.

The apartment I had already signed a lease on was the most apparent problem – on arrival I realized it had no windows and the balcony I had expected did not exist. The only shower was in my bedroom – and I would be sharing it with an as yet unknown roommate. Toulouse, perhaps already deserted for the summer, seemed gray, drab and unfriendly –I saw only shuttered windows and empty streets.

On the first day I was shown my new office which I would later call “my dungeon.” It is separated from all other employees, has walls built in cinder block and also has no windows. In addition to this isolation, the work site is located in gloomy urban sprawl that is at best uninspiring and at worst depressing to walk through in the heat, rain or otherwise. Between the dungeon, the site location and the cold industrial feeling of the building, I was convinced that I would be spending my workdays secluded, lonely and uninspired.

On arrival, my French was awkward and clunky after two years of disuse. I had brought The New Yorker with me and read it on my way to work the first week. The difference between the beautifully crafted English in the magazine and my childlike phrases in French almost brought tears to my eyes. I wanted to crawl into my dungeon and never speak French again.

Seen from the kitchen floor that first night, a year in Toulouse seemed an eternity – I would start the job search again and find something else.

I didn’t and two weeks later I was ready to face the thought of a year in Toulouse. After getting some sleep and finding a new apartment, the proposition of living and working in Toulouse seemed much more fruitful than the week before. It might even be fun.

During that week, I stumbled upon the song Seasons of Love from the musical Rent which gave me some insights on how to think about how long a year was – according to the song a year is exactly 525,6000 minutes. When broken down into minutes a year seemed more manageable; anyone can handle a minute of something even if it is bad. I also saw 525,600 opportunities for finding new adventures, meeting new friends and having new experiences.

I am now walking to work counting down how many more days I have left and sadly realizing they are coming to a close. In the end, I have loved my year here and I am glad to have resisted the impulse to run away from the unknown. Despite my initial hesitation, most everything has worked out well. I found a great apartment in the middle of town and I will miss the color, charm and liveliness of Toulouse. My job has turned out to be satisfying and has given me the opportunity to speak with people of many different ages and opinions. What I feared would be an unfriendly work experience has in fact offered many opportunities for socializing: a large cafeteria where everyone eats together, dance classes, oenology courses, ski trips, and sports facilities (all subsidized by the company so not too expensive).

I now have eight days left of teaching. Having such definite bookends as “arrival” and “departure” helps me realize how determinedly time runs forward, and how important it is to jump in before it runs its course. The year’s speedy passing reminds me that I have but a short moment to grab on, try, connect, experience and learn - before the chance is gone.

I recently decided to go to New York to get a Masters degree in Journalism and I am now, again, waking up at 5:30 trying in anticipation of what a year in New York will bring. A year ago I was in exactly the same state of uncertainty and expectation regarding France. One thought that quiets my emotions is the realization that after the unknown becomes known, it is usually difficult to leave it behind. The pain becomes lessons learned, the joy memories to hold onto, and the new rhythm comforting.

The song from Rent says we can measure time in love. I would say my year can be measured in lessons learned, ideas challenged and friends made. But what is perhaps more essential than finding a measure is the realization that time is slippery and will quickly leave us - and to take advantage of opportunities accordingly.

Mold Gold

Roquefort cheese

Moldy food is not always the best candidate for the trash bin. Sometimes, it's precisely the mold that makes something taste good.

The original Casanova once called a moldy, creamy cheese his favorite aphrodisiac.

It was love that helped a young shepherd in Roquefort, a village in southern France, discover this Casanova favorite centuries ago. Unfortunately, the shepherd discovered this green gold too late to entice his own sweetheart.

Legend has it that the young shepherd was watching his flock near the caves of Roquefort when suddenly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen appeared on the grassy hill. He approached her but she wasn't about to test her chances with this young man and ran. But he pursued her in an impassioned fit, leaving his flock. This continued for days, but the young man never caught up with her. Days later the shepherd returned to his cave in Roquefort broken-hearted and hungry. To his dismay, the slice of cheese and bread he had left in the musty cave was covered with dark green mold. Ravenous with hunger he ate it anyway. Surprisingly, the cheese had a captivating pungent flavor to it that he had never tasted before. He shared the information with others and they started figuring out how to make the cheese.

There are similar blue cheeses like Roquefort produced in different countries under different names; England makes Stilton, Spain produces Cabrales and you can find Maytag Blue from Iowa. Today, Roquefort is still produced much as the young shepherd's version. Bread is induced with spores from mushrooms that grow in the caves of Roquefort, and then left until it has grown into a fungus called penicillium roqueforti. This penicillium powder is added to vats of sheep's milk which curdles, and is molded into large white rounds of cheese. The rounds are then aged in the caves under the supervision of master cheese makers, finally emerging after three months ready for market.

If you visit the town of Roquefort, I highly recommend the tour at Société, one of only seven producers of Roquefort. The hour-long Société tour costs three euros and is surprisingly entertaining, informative and includes a tasting of the three Société Roquefort cheeses. You can keep all cheese for about three months in the fridge without a problem. Cheese gets more flavorful as it ages and normally the older it is, the better it is by French standards.

And if you want to get the sense of what the young shepherd must have gone through to chase his lover, you can also climb the cliff behind Roquefort. There is a hike that leaves from the tourism office. The views of the hills, cliffs and plateaus that make-up the surrounding countryside are stunning. You’ll burn almost enough calories on this hike to justify eating a quarter round of Roquefort for the next three months.

View from the hike.

Barcelona

One of the many benches to sit at in Barcelona.

I am suddenly realizing that my year in Toulouse is almost over and have begun experiencing a bitter sweet mixture of sadness that I will soon leave France, and excitement over moving to New York. This year has been extremely fulfilling and I will miss my relaxed French lifestyle, the adventure of working in a French company and the illuminations that come with living in another culture.

However, my trip to Barcelona last weekend helped remind me that much of what I love about living in France can be found anywhere in the world – the chance to explore, to open yourself up to new people and customs, the pressure to get the most out of your short stay in a place (three days, a year, or hey, why not a lifetime?) and the chance to express yourself in new ways to new people– which in my case this weekend was a very botched Spanish, I didn’t try to butcher Catalan.

A door at the La Pedrera apartment building that Gaudi designed.

Barcelona is about three and a half hours from Toulouse by car, but last weekend was my first time going this year. Despite the proximity to France, I was impressed by the differences between Barcelona and Toulouse, or even Paris.

Barcelona is funky, colorful and vibrant where Paris is more classy, contained and refined. In Barcelona I particularly loved the abundance of bright colors, the diversity of the architecture and the extroverted and exuberant people. At the same time, Barcelona isn’t intense and moves at a relaxed, rolling pace. The wide, tree-lined ‘ramblas’ encourage strolls throughout the city and benches are an inviting way to read a paper or talk friends.

Fresh squeezed juice at the Boqueria Market.

The food I ate in Barcelona was less highly polished than the French fare but very good – I ate lots of cured ham, small tapas and of course, beer is everywhere and olive oil on everything. I loved the traditional slices of toasted bread scrubbed with olive oil, garlic and smashed tomatoes. They can be found everywhere and are a college student’s dream for being cheap cheap. I also full heartedly enjoyed a particular chicken dish I ordered at a high-end restaurant. To my surprise, a soup bowl of olive oil arrived with small shredded pieces of chicken breast floating in it. Despite my initial fears, I have to say the tapa was excellent – the oil had a lemon flavor and was light and fine.

Another memorable food experience was the “Marcat Boqueria,” an immense food market with everything from fish stands, to chocolate, to organic and meatless paella. The fresh squeezed fruit juice for under 2 euros was a yummy and an inexpensive breakfast. But the most memorable experience I had was watching a butcher cut up a chicken. While he butchered away, he casually talked with his customer as if he saw her every Sunday. After about five minutes, he had in front of him the typical breast and thigh cuts that usually arrive under plastic in American supermarkets. I had never seen a chicken cut up in front of me, and it was fascinating to see how the process works. I wish this custom would come to the US as it seems both very hygienic and a good way for people to be more conscious of the meat-ness of meat. Seeing the full carcass and the cleaning and cutting process made me re-think every having thrown away chicken that had gone bad because I had not cooked it in time.

Una bruja!

And of course, going to Spain meant I got to dust off my long dormant Spanish, which was incredibly fun for me and probably very painful for anyone I was speaking to. I had many opportunities to practice as I drove to Barcelona and back in a car full of Spanish speakers, including some who spoke neither French nor English. A good sign of my level is this conversation I had in Spanish: a Spaniard (or should I be saying Cataluynian?) in the car told me that my Spanish was good, and I responded in Spanish by saying, “Yes, the Spanish (people) are great” thinking he was benefiting from my Barcelona enthusiasm to make a joke about how great all Spanish people are. This led him to laugh and inevitably modify his statement about my language level.

But, a few misunderstandings and all verb conjugations aside, I was happily surprised that many Spanish words have stayed with me from the days of singing with Señora Farr and Señor Jimenez en Español. I am solid on colors, food groups, days of the week, animals and physical descriptions. (If speaking to me in Spanish please stay within these topics.) However, now that the Spanish language part of my brain has been activated, my French has been infiltrated by incoherent sounds and words that are in no language at all.

All in all a great weekend and a wonderful city to visit.

French Easter Lunch

The shells on the far left are bulots.

Toulouse the week before Easter. Unfortunately, Easter Sunday was rainy and the "Bells" couldn't hide the chocolates outside.

Last weekend was Easter and I was lucky enough to get an invite to an Easter lunch at a co-worker’s house complete with grandparents and small children. As expected, the event was a culinary adventure.

Within five hours we had woven our way through a first course of oysters slurped up with lemon, shrimp still in their casings, bulot dipped in homemade mayonnaise (bulot is a rubbery and salty shell food that reminds me of escargot), home-made foie gras (goose liver that is cooked and resembles pâté), a tomato salad, lamb and green beans, green salad, a plate of about seven different cheeses, homemade ice-cream cake swimming in cherry sauce, a dry Algerian cake and Easter chocolates. The alcohol procession included Porto, oyster wine, sugary white wine called Muscat de Rivasaltes, red wine and champagne. Luckily, the lunch was long and filling to counter-act all the bubbly.

The largest difference between my usual American Easter lunch and the French one I experienced is the reutilization of the meal in France. In more formal meals here, everything is eaten in a certain order and one at a time. Not even the children at the table dared interrupt the order of dishes. The eleven-year-old girl ate absolutely no sea food or juice and waited to save as much room as possible for the very filling, very caloric foie gras. She also interjected quickly to stop my naive spreading of foie gras over my slice of bread, that wasn’t done. I had to cut a thick slice of foie gras and eat it that way – go big or go home. She was right, it was better. She was also probably right to tame it down on the previous courses.

This meal also shows how diverse the meat options are in France. For someone like me who started eating red meat for the first time around the age of 18, dishes like foie gras took some getting used to. Shockingly, the 20-month old at this Easter table didn’t seem to have any qualms about the stronger tasting French food. He happily lapped up oyster juice and sucked on Roquefort cheese asking for more. I was a few years behind him and only started swallowing down the foie gras reluctantly at age 21 to be polite. But after the Christmas rush of foie gras in Toulouse this year, I realized that it was actually not too bad. Now I’m over the mind block of a stuffed goose liver and it is decidedly delicious. Which is probably the right opinion to have in southwest France where foie gras is especially adored.

To top the meal off, we had chocolates that the “Easter Bells” had brought for the children. There were no plastic eggs filled with jellybeans or hard-boiled eggs dyed multiple colors. The bunny rabbit didn’t seem to be as prominent either and was nowhere to be found in the decorations at this particular house. Instead, there was a huge chocolate egg that opened up and was filled with smaller chocolates molded into different shapes like shells, bells and fish. This was truly delectable chocolate. Maybe bells are better than rabbits at making chocolate? Who knew?

My American friend and I left on the train reeling from five hours of eating. It was such a pleasure to see another version of Easter. Many thanks to our French hosts who were kind enough to open up their home to us and show us how to sip oysters and slab on the foie gras.

Going to the Doctors

I’ve recently made another trip to the doctors as a result of the bad economy. I’ve been leaving Toulouse every weekend this past month to take advantage of having Fridays off. The lack of sales has forced my company to shut down to save on employee pay and energy costs. Taking advantage of three day weekends, I headed to Spain to go skiing, Paris to stroll down the Champs-Elysées, and the Côte d'Azur to go boating …. and finally my body said no more. While in Cannes I came down with a flu that has morphed into bronchitis. A body ache, sore throat, and runny nose made made me slow down.

Realizing that I was loosing my voice and coughing to the point where conversation courses were no longer desirable, I headed to the French doctors. I’ve commented before on the informality of the French doctors. Instead of sterile, bright white facilities the French doctors offices have more of a dingy, comfy homespun feel. I went in yesterday, paid 22 euros to have the doctor check me out and declare that I have bronchitis and then got a list of four medicines to take including antibiotics. He took my Carte Vital which identifies me in the “sécurité sociale” system and tells the system to reimburse me at 70 percent of the cost. The reimbursement will come directly into my bank account. He also filled out a piece of paper that declares me sick so that I can stay at home and not go to work. If you miss work in France for health reasons you need this little piece of paper. I later found out from my flat-mate that I am actually obliged to stay home for the total days that the doctor prescribed, which in my case is two. Otherwise the company will be held responsible for any health problems that might happen on the job.

My doctor hand wrote a list of medications and told me to take it to the pharmacy. I was surprised that anyone could read the scribbles, but the pharmacists managed just fine. The total price for the medications (cough syrup, Advil, an expectorant, and an antibiotic) was about 10 euros. My job does not give me the full coverage health plan called a “mutual,” so I pay 30 percent of any medical care and medications. For about 20 euros out of pocket after re-imbursements I paid for my doctors visit and medication.

I did however have to go to three pharmacies before I found the antibiotics. At one I got the typical French response – no they didn’t have the medication and no he couldn’t tell me where I might be able to find it. I had to take a deep breath and try not to get upset at the old man. Even pharmacists will not go out of their way to give you useful information! It is the customer service rule of no customer service. I imagined myself expiring on the doorstep and it being this pharmacist’s fault, and then I pulled it together and went to the next pharmacy where I found the medication.

Interestingly enough my doctor seemed pessimistic that the French system would survive. I can see why it might run the tax payers into the ground and the system has a tendancy towards over-medication. The French consume huge amounts of prescriptions and are the world leaders in anti-depressant usage. I have one acquaintance who takes so many medications that the they are doing more harm than his other issues. But despite the oversight issue, the French system makes medical help possible for someone like me on a tight budget. And merci bien for that! I wouldn't want to think about the costs in the US for similar treatement.

How Do You Talk About Race?

I just listened to an NPR Talk of the World podcast called “How Does Your Country Talk about Race?” Don Gonyea of NPR asks a worldwide audience if the election of Obama has changed the way people in other countries discuss race, and if so how.

The piece is fascinating for me because it focuses heavily on the race conversation in France and illustrates many of the differences between the U.S. and France concerning this topic. As always, I’m a huge fan of NPR and suggest the podcast.

Living here in France has helped illustrate for me the influence of culture on the way people analyze issues and think. You might hope you analyze situations independently, but move to another country and you realize how deeply your cultural upbringing dictates what you think. One of the areas where I see this in France is the resistance to acknowledging any racial or ethnic differences as a means of creating equality.

The French, in theory, want everyone to be equal, and so refuse to recognize racial differences at the political level. In France you cannot ask someone to identify their race, ethnicity or religious affiliation. Thus, there are no hard statistics in France that include any of these categories.

However, as Pap Ndiaye, a historian, professor and guests on Talk of the World points out, non-white French citizens are routinely discriminated against in France. There are no statistics to prove it, but you will find very few Algerians or Africans (or people from other non-white ethnicities) in high positions in government or business in France.

The belief in “egalité” is held to with such vigor in France that people become offended when race is brought into the conversation at all. Recently, a French student of mine who works with me to learn English became livid during a conversation that brought up cultural differences. We were reading a short article describing how Athabaskans, a North American language group of Native Americans, dislike speaking when meeting a stranger. The article said that when an Athabaskan speaker is uncertain of the relationship she should have with a stranger, she prefers not to speak until the relationship becomes more clear. Thus, “introductions” are rather silent affairs where nothing much is said.

After my French student read this he could barely speak, he was so frustrated. He threw down the paper I had given him and exclaimed that the article was completely racist. He explained that for him, saying that Athabaskans speak less is racist. Clearly, my student thinks it is wrong to generalize based on ethnicity.

This summer I was trying to explain to a different student why I liked Obama over Hillary Clinton, and one of my many reasons was that he was black. My student became visibly angry and upset by what I had said. So, I explained again: yes, I think it is important that Obama is black and that I think his race changes what he can do for the country. My student vehemently argued that a candidate’s race should not change the way you think about him, that I should want a good president and should ignore everything else. I argued that, all else being equal, a good black president could do more for race relations in our country than a good white president.

Obama has been and still is extremely popular in France. This is not because he is black. I personally believe Obama is loved in France for one very simple reason: he is not Republican like the much hated, much ridiculed George W. He is adored here for that reason as well as for his charisma and the sense of honesty he emits. Although the French are hesitant to dwell on his race, Obama’s election has indeed sparked a conversation about the absence of non-whites in French politics. The thought that the U.S. – a country the French consider fundamentally racist – could elect a black president before France has caused shock waves here and a bit of introspection. There is now also more talk about “positive discrimination,” the French way of saying affirmative action which has been fairly taboo up until now. This change can be seen with the recent appointment of Yazid Sabeg, a supporter of affirmative action, as Commissioner of Diversity.

Of course, differences do exist and people in France remark racial differences and discriminate accordingly. In the NPR piece, an English instructor working in Paris talks about how his students with Algerian roots will describe themselves as “French” only to have a white French student correct them by saying, “no, you are Algerian.” The first student will then respond that he is a French citizen, that he has always lived in France, and that he is indeed French. As in this example, the adjective “French” is often reserved for people who have historically resided in France. French thus means “white” French.

Differences exist. They are not always good - it is not a good thing that Africans are discriminated against in France nor African-Americans in the United States. But if you don’t acknowledge differences you can’t acknowledge systematic abuses taking place, nor celebrate diversity.

I dislike being judged as a certain way simply because I am American. No, I don’t eat at McDonald's all the time, no, I do not think we should have gone into Iraq, no, I don’t always think about money. And yet it is helpful to talk about “American tradition,” “American culture” and “Americans.” I often make general comparisons between French and American cultures because they are fundamentally different, even if each individual is particular and unique. For example, there is a very different conversation about race going on in the two countries, and a different approach on how to discourage racial discrimination.

A Christmas Dessert - Bûche de Noël

The Bûche de Noël I made this Christmas. The white shapes sprouting from my yule log? Meringue mushrooms of course!

If I had stayed in France, I would have wanted apple pie at Christmas. As I instead flew to Sacramento, California for the holidays, I wanted to bring back a taste of a French Christmas. So, I decided to make a Bûche de Noël, a traditional French dessert that we would call a yule log cake.

Around mid-December, Bûche de Noël began to appear in the pastry-shop windows of Toulouse. "Bûche" is the French word for log. They are small, cylindrical jelly roll cakes shaped and decorated as yule logs. These otherwise simple, brown cakes become a slice of woodland wonderment with little forest figures, sprigs of holly and a heavy frosting of powder-sugar adorning them. Small dear, a lone ax and mushrooms often complete the woodsy look.

Making the cake is a bit tricky for beginners. You have to roll a sheet of baked sponge cake into a cylinder shape, let it cool, and then go back and ice the curling cake carefully, trying not to brake it. Then you cover the entire log with frosting and add your woodland details on top. When the cake is cut, there is a spiral of frosted cake reminiscent of the rings in a log.

The most difficult part of my cake-baking experience was the meringue needed for the mushrooms and frosting. The Julia Child recipe I used called for meringue mushrooms and crystallized caramel cobweb decorations, two things that are normally beyond my pastry talents. I had to throw out two trail batches of meringue gone bad before I got it right! One tasted horribly burned and the other was too stiff. I decided to ditch the sugary cobweb, although I've never had a cobwebbed cake and it sounded tempting. But Christmas Eve dinner was fast approaching I had been yule logging most of my day away, so my cake was cobweb-less.

But, a culinary experience with Julia Child is bound to be worth it in the end. I was ultimately happy with my meringue mushrooms. They look very impressive once on the cake! And the bûche got many compliments which I should thank Julia for.

Of course, my family didn’t give up the apple pie tradition, and we ate a bit of both pie and bûche. However, I can see visions of yule logs dancing in our future Christmas Eve’s!


You can see more on how to make a “Bûche de Noël” here

The recipe I used was Julia Child's and can be found in the recipe book Christmas Memories. She makes it with an almond sponge cake and rum flavored frosting and I'm a fan.